Jack's Tale: The Elevator, #2

By Sam Kates

An eerie calm. Chaos lurks.

A land inhabited by people from distant places and times. A land of meadow and forest, where to leave the trail is to court death. A land where the Scourgers roam.

In an apparently selfless act to save their lives and perform the task set by the Lord of the Dance, Jack has abandoned Matt, Kim and Tara on the near shore. But his motives are not noble.

What he discovers on the far shore changes all: it is not merely his own and former Elevator companions' lives that are at risk. The stakes are dramatically higher. And, like it or not, Jack is forced to join the game.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sam Kates
• Release date: Jan 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9781912718115

Book preview

Jack’s Tale

(The Elevator: Book Two)

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Sam Kates

Copyright © Sam Kates 2018

All rights reserved.

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This is a work of fiction.

All characters appearing in this work

are products of the author’s imagination.

Any resemblance to real persons,

living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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ISBN: 978-1-912718-11-5

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Cover by GhastlyOfferings.com

Photo by Hoach Le Dinh on Unsplash.com

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For news of releases and promotions:

http://www.samkates.co.uk/stay-in-touch/

Contents

Part 1: The Far Shore

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Part 2: Tumble Down

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Part 3: Old Acquaintances

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

About the Author

Part 1: The Far Shore

One

The river slipped by like spilled syrup. Water didn’t so much drip from the chain as dangle. A faint chemical odour drifted from the brown surface, suggesting that contact with human skin might not be advisable.

Jack’s hands were protected by hide gauntlets, which covered his forearms nearly to the elbows. He was glad of their protection: the pads of his fingers bore shallow cuts that no longer bled but occasionally caused him a twinge of discomfort. The gauntlets also enabled a firm grasp on the chain, which he pulled hand over hand as effortlessly as if he had been a ferryman for most of his twenty years. By these means, the raft moved easily across the sluggish water.

The bank of fog rose ahead like a wall of cloud. Jack looked back to the shore he was leaving behind.

Three people—two women and a man—stood on the jetty watching his progress. The man raised his hand in a funny half-wave which made Jack grin. He held out a fist and raised his middle finger.

Farther back and to one side of the watching people, a party of razor-toothed clowns, led by a fat, silvery eyed figure in a monk’s robe and cowl, moved towards the river bank. Jack repressed a shudder and returned his attention to the chain. A few more tugs and he had reached the fog bank. With the slightest hesitation and a deep breath, he yanked on the chain again.

The mist swallowed man and raft like a ravening beast.

* * *

Dank silence. Even the faint gurgle of the river was deadened by the fog. Jack stopped hauling on the chain so he could strain his ears for any sound, but none came.

He sighed. The whisper of exhalation died before it could leave his lips. He began pulling the chain through his gloved hands once more.

Despite his current situation, or perhaps because of it, his mind, with nothing to occupy it but the swirling patterns of fog and rhythmic tugging on chain, wandered a little. He thought, randomly, of his name. More specifically, his surname.

He despised it and only used it when he had no choice on opening a bank account and applying for a provisional driving licence, or when completing formal documents like job applications. It was her name. She who had brought him into the world, raised him in an atmosphere of bitterness and neglect, before abandoning him on his sixteenth birthday.

He didn’t know what awaited him when he arrived at the far shore, but some things were certain: there would be no more call for bank accounts or driving licences, no more formal documents to complete. He no longer needed a surname so he would discard it along with the life on which he had turned his back.

Willingly turned his back. Jack—just plain Jack, thank you very much—wondered if the three people standing on the jetty imagined he was doing something noble, something heroic. If they believed he was performing a selfless deed in order to save their miserable existences at the expense of his own, they were bigger fools than he’d thought.

Something made him blink, breaking his reverie.

Bright light and warmth on his face. Sunlight.

He emerged from the mist.

* * *

The chain ended at a wooden jetty similar to the one from which he’d set off. Beyond lay green plains and undulating hills, darkly wooded slopes and, striding away in the clear distance, purple-tinged mountains.

Jack hesitated, eyes narrowing as he scanned the shoreline for signs of a welcoming committee. If clowns with stumps for tongues and razor blades instead of teeth awaited him here, he didn’t know what he would do. If he didn’t reach the shore, he wouldn’t complete the Task and the others would be set upon by their versions of the clowns—Matt had said he saw them as snakes and hadn’t one of the women, the brash Yank, been confronted by, of all things, dolphins?—but Jack could no more advance to meet his worst nightmare than he could choose to thrust his arm into a cauldron of boiling water, no matter the consequences if he failed.

The grassed slopes leading to the water’s edge looked clear of life. He could see no evidence of the presence of clowns or a waxy skinned bloke in a robe. And, Jack suspected, seeing the monk here—the Quartermaster, he’d called himself, but Jack preferred the title Matt had given him—would be worse, a great deal worse, than even the clowns. Jack had been shown a glimpse of the monk’s true nature when he had tried to grab the cowled figure; his greatest wish, more fervently held than his desire to avoid murderous clowns, was never again to enter the presence of the Lord of the Dance.

Now that he was clear of the mist, the air had turned warm and fresh, despite the chemical odour rising from the water being stronger, sharper here. Jack filled his lungs, grimaced at the bitter taste and cast aside his doubts.

After a few more minutes of tugging on the chain, the raft bumped gently against the jetty and came to rest.

Jack removed the gauntlets, dropped them to the deck and stepped ashore.

* * *

He stood on the jetty, poised to leap back onto the raft at the first sign of danger. The noise—more the sensation of movement rather than an actual sound—came from behind him. Jack whirled around.

The raft was ten yards from the jetty, moving steadily towards the fog bank. The chain trailed slackly behind it, disappearing into the murky water. The deck of the raft was empty except for the gauntlets lying where he’d left them.

Oh, fuck, he muttered.

Even if the river hadn’t been giving off an acrid smell of chemicals, Jack knew he would never be able to swim to the other shore. He wasn’t the strongest swimmer and the water moved listlessly, as if too heavy to hurry, giving the impression that to attempt to swim it would be like trying to negotiate thin treacle. He doubted he could even make it as far as the fog.

He watched the raft until it slipped into the dense mist and was hidden from view.

Whatever awaited him on this shore, he no longer had an alternative but to face it.

He turned inland.

* * *

A path, worn into bare earth, led from the jetty through grassland. In many places tufts of young grass poked through, suggesting that the path was not used frequently. The mature grass to either side grew thickly and free of weeds, as luxuriant as an oriental rug.

Jack proceeded cautiously, senses on full alert, feeling exposed and alone. The latter sensation was a familiar one. Also, in a way, a comforting one.

When loneliness has become your natural state of existence, finding it again after a period in the company of others can provide solace.

Jack came to a stop. The newfound solitude looked like it might be short-lived. A few hundred yards ahead, to the side of the path, stood a ramshackle wooden hut. Sitting on a wooden chair in front of it was a girl.

It was too late to make a stealthy approach since he had clearly been spotted—the girl’s bearing had stiffened from casual slouch to ramrod straight. He could not see anyone else, but there could be someone in the hut. It wasn’t huge, not much bigger than a child’s playhouse, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t concealing another person.

Jack dithered. He contemplated retracing his steps, finding another path, but dismissed the idea. The next path could lead him to a gang of men, or worse. At least this looked to be a girl on her own. After the Lord of the Dance and the clowns, not to mention some of the other sights he had witnessed during this endless day, the current situation, whilst warranting caution, did not demand evasion.

He stepped forward.

* * *

He continued to scan both sides of the path ahead for danger, although a covert approach to either of his flanks would be nigh-on impossible to pull off here. In the near distance beyond the hut, trees spread across the landscape like a rash, the path disappearing into dark forested tunnels, but here the path was open to gentle, grassed slopes to either side, providing no cover behind which a potential assailant could advance in concealment.

The girl stood as he drew nearer and stepped behind the chair, gripping its back as though ready to wield it like a lion tamer should the need arise.

Jack drew to within five paces before coming to a halt.

Er, hello, he said.

She was slight, dressed in a shapeless woollen garment which Jack would have hesitated to describe as a ‘dress’. Dark eyes watched him carefully from a face of sharp, sparrow-like features. He guessed she was aged sixteen or thereabouts.

Hello? he repeated.  

Without taking her eyes off him, she removed one hand from the back of the chair and pointed inland at the path.

Jack took a step closer. She tensed like a nervous cat.

"My name is Jack. Ja-ck. He found himself speaking slowly and loudly, like addressing someone hard of hearing. Do you have a name?" He tried a smile. It felt fake and unconvincing.

She pointed again, jerking her hand for emphasis.

I get it, Jack said. You want me to continue along the path. And I will. But I need to eat and drink before I do. He patted the pockets of his trousers and then pointed at his mouth. Hungry. Thirsty.

To underline the point, his stomach gave a low grumble. The last nourishment he’d consumed had been a few chunks of watermelon shortly after the Elevator had disgorged them on the opposite side of the river several hours ago. (Not that, Jack suspected, based on all he had experienced since stepping into the Elevator that morning, concepts like ‘hours’ and ‘minutes’ held much meaning in this place.) He had vomited most of the watermelon when the Lord of the Dance had shown him what true madness looked like.

The girl bit her lip.

Wait there, she said.

Ah. So you can speak.

She turned towards the hut. For the first time Jack noticed two or three bushes that grew next to it, and heard the tinkling chatter of a stream that ran behind it before disappearing across the meadow towards the river. The branches of the bushes hung heavy with some sort of fruit. Jack’s stomach rumbled again like distant thunder.

He took a step from the path, meaning to follow her to make it easier to bring him fruit and water, assuming that was her intention. But she immediately turned around as though sensing his tread on the grass.

No! Her sharp gaze darted fearfully towards the dark line of trees in the near distance. You must remain on the trail. She spoke with a hint of inflection. Jack was not good at placing accents, but thought that it might be Eastern European.

The last thing Jack wanted, with sustenance beckoning, was to spook this girl into intractability or flight or worse. The thought crossed his mind that he could simply walk up to the bushes and help himself, with or without her blessing, but he was not yet ready to take such a risk without knowing anything about the world in which he found himself.

Why? He tried to keep his tone even. Why must I remain on the trail?

Her head darted and ducked to facilitate her flitting gaze, making her appear even more like a sparrow. She lowered her voice to a whisper. If you stray from the trail, the Scourgers will come.

Two

A sound came, like the crackling of a raging fire heard from afar. Or of dense undergrowth being trampled. An echoing crack, like a pistol being discharged.

The girl’s head jerked so violently at each noise that Jack was afraid her neck would snap. Her eyelids stretched so wide it was a wonder her eyeballs didn’t pop out like the sprung eyes on joke spectacles.

They come, she whispered, and thrust her hands to her mouth.

Jack was more unnerved by the girl’s reaction than by the distant noises. He hurriedly moved back so that his feet once